r/DAZN•2 yr. ago

NFL Game Pass International | Information & Discussion | Please Check Here Before Posting

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tldr: Sticky post with general information about NFL Game Pass International (NFL GPI). The problems we are experiencing, the pros (which are basically none) and some suggestions for solutions. This post has a lot of info and is a bit long. Skip to “3. Alternatives for the most actionable part that will become the most popular.

DAZN purchased the rights to NFL’s Game Pass International (NFL GPI) product in 2023. These rights essentially cover all markets outside of the US for a decade (!!). A massive L by the NFL according to most people who have had the experience of using DAZN first hand.

Index:

This intro
A Brief History of NFL GPI
Problems
Alternatives
Final Word

First, a bit of history since it’s important to the context and to understand better how this really is ensh*ttification at display and that the NFL GPI has only gotten worse with no real improvements since 2016.

#1. A Brief History of NFL GPI

2010/11ish

First NFL Game Pass International App “over the top OTT” was released. Prior to this a service was available for a few years through NFL+ web that was very limited. Otherwise just cable solutions depending on country and rights.

-- In retrospect, this NFL GPI product was fantastic and offered more functionality than any product since. This was developed by the same US company behind the MLB app at the time IIRC. Offered a multitude of high quality streams, multiview, airplay/casting etc and was surely compatible with different quality streams and 4K would not have been a problem.

-- Another W was that it could be jailbroken and thus entirely free. This was (very :) ) consumer friendly of course but understandably not sustainable in the eyes of NFL 😆

Yet another dub was that the API was basically open and you could add the NFL GPI to your own streaming service. I recall adding it to Plex so had integrated NFL in my Plex server. Awesome times.

2017

NFL GPI changed supplier to an Italian software company called Deltatre. IIRC this was a 5 year deal but math tells me it actually ended up going on for 6 seasons (seasons 2017-2022). Maybe due to the pandemic.

This was a web view app that basically wrapped a website on all platforms (akin to PWA for those a bit more knowledgable about SW development). Therefore a suboptimal user experience that felt sluggish and hard to use from day 1 - especially the apps.

It also suffered from a ton of bugs and issues. The first season was a disaster with problems week after week. It did slowly get better and about 2-3 years in it worked ok. Many users, including yours truly, claimed money back and did get it as many Sundays the streams just didn’t work. Also Super Bowl was entirely broken in years 1 and 2.

It seemed like it couldn’t get worse and was only up from here, and then…

2023

The rumors of DAZN were true and disaster struck. As NFL renegotiated rights for streaming/casting (also cable in the US) DAZN won the NFL GPI rights for 10 years. Google/Youtube got the domestic rights for Sunday Ticket until 2029 (Thursday Night Football and some other exceptions apply in the US). Prior to this DAZN did have NFL streaming rights for Canada. It was a solution that many users had come across through different “gray” solutions as it was possible to get it cheap. Worked ok for the price and was akin to a cable over the top stream solution. Biggest downside imo was (I used it as backup for a year or two) Canadian ads cut in instead of US. But never did any users actually believe they would end up getting the International rights.

It’s been a shit show since day one. More on this in the problems section next.

#2. Problems

The first season (2023) of DAZN having the rights displayed a heavily deteriorated service compared to the previous (which wasn’t great either, as seen above).

An incomplete list of issues present at start of 2023 season:

more expensive
worse quality
less content
lower stability
more expensive
stupid montage instead of ads
horrible support
auto renewals no one asked for
bad International support for travels
buggy vpn protection
no support for VPN
no support for travelling (which is against EU law)
no casting (Chromecast, Airplay)
no downloads
all 22 missing
no 4K
no HDR

A few things improved during the season like US live streams with US ads instead of the DAZN montage and DAZN claims to have solved more things for 2024 like downloads being available. This has yet to be confirmed.

Some reactions and posts:

Youtuber:

NFL Gamepass has moved to Dazn, and so far it's a disaster

My post from a year ago:

From the DAZN community on Reddit: NFL Game Pass International

Petition:

Petition DAZN is destroying the GamePass NFL experience. Bring it back!

3. Alternatives

IPTV

Works well for some. Is typically legal for end user depending on jurisdiction. Will often have the actual National broadcast from the US. Another upside is that it’s usually very cheap in comparison.

Biggest downside by far is stability. It’s up to the service and hard to find good ones.

NFL+ (with US VPN)

NFL+ offers Redzone and some select games live. It offers replays as soon as the game is finished. Also, streaming of some games live on mobile platforms. However, it requires US VPN and the geo protection seems to become stricter all the time. With a gps spoofer and proper VPN though most games can be seen live.

Costs $99 for the season. Usually on a 50% sale in the beginning of the season.

This is a great option if Redzone is sufficient for NFL Sundays and if watching replays is the main user case. Personally I get this every year as I’m more or less never able to watch SNF MNF etc and always catch those games by replay.

YoutubeTV (with US VPN)

As mentioned Google got the US rights for broadcasting when NFL negotiated it (while DAZN got International). This is a 7-year deal worth about $2B per year. This is in contrast to DAZN paying about $1B for the full decade of International rights. Completely different numbers and says a lot about what an absolute power business the NFL is in the US.

Youtube actually knows what they are doing and is one of the OG - if not THE OG - video on demand services. The experience is great with constant updates. One would have hoped that given the numbers above Youtube could’ve just coughed up $M100 per year more for NFL GPI but for some reason they didn’t. They also have some of the geo checking software in place as there is a lot of local parameters in play for the US version for blackout etc. But my guess is that DAZN won solely because of their state of the art VPN checking making it really hard to get around cheaper prices.

You have probably read in the news about the absolutely ridiculous Sunday Ticket prices which are over $600 for the season. And there are still blackouts and some games that will not be included. For us International users - you also need to deal with that entire part of it with VPNs etc. In sum, for the rich super fan, this is probably the recommended way of going about it though since the experience is great with a high quality product.

DAZN

Some general tips for DAZN in case you are considering getting it anyway.

-make sure to use a cancellable/freezable credit card as DAZN will opt you in to renew when it ends. this happens to a lot of people and is just one of their many dark patterns on display

-use extra buyer protection like Paypal if possible to create another insurance/proxy between you and the company

-disable auto sub in settings

-it is currently possible to pay per month while the sub is for a year. In total a bit more expensive but combined with a freezable cc recommended above it can be “cancelled” when you want, for example after Super Bowl totalling at about 5-6 payments.

DAZN (in another country to save $)

If you consider signing up from another country to save money - this can be done and there is nothing to suggest it’s not legal in any jurisdiction.
You might be travelling and/or live abroad some, that is noone’s business and certainly not DAZN’s.
However, your experience will likely be subpar and the benefit questionable since it’s still a bit too expensive for an even sh*ttier experience than regular DAZN. DAZN spend all business efforts on geo locking and tracking VPNs - they are state of the art in that area and it’s very hard to get around with practices that have negative effect on the product for normal users. According to reports, no VPN consistently works well for DAZN.

As of this writing, Windscribe is reported to work best. A good option is Streamlocator which offers support for a few DAZN locations. It will work at or near 99% of the time but costs like $5 monthly (sub is free year 1 when buying the device). Additionally, DNS services like ControlD can often be configured to work well.

The cheapest way to sign up currently seems to be Brazil at R$400 for the year which is about $75. Should mention (I have not personally confirmed) that the game in Brazil on Friday Sept 6 is probably blacked out if signing up to DAZN Brazil.

4. Final Word

Note that DAZN is owned and funded by ex Soviet oligark and billionaire Leonard “Len” Blavatnik’s company Access Industries and a couple of VCs including Softbank. So no one that can’t afford it will lose money when fans try and find other options.

It is noteworthy as well that DAZN is losing a lot of money every year. Fiscal data is publicly available (it’s a UK corp.) for those interested. Eventually the owners may get fed up. Hopefully it crashes and burns before the decade long NFL agreement is up. Ideally YoutubeTV, already having a lot of the geo check infrastructure in place, picks it up and offers an actual good service for comparable price.

Crossing fingers. Anyway, only 9 years to go as of this writing…

Anymore options and solutions that are recommended (and legal, so they can be discussed of course) ?

Looking forward to reading comments, hearing your experience and updating this post!

Posted Aug 31, 2024, 10:27 PM UTC

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